World’s smallest blood monitoring implant tells your smartphone when you’re about to have a heart attack

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

A team of scientists at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have developed the world’s smallest medical implant to monitor critical chemicals in the blood. The 14mm device measures up to five indicators, including proteins like troponin, that show if and when a heart attack has occurred. Using Bluetooth, the device can then transmit the data to a smartphone for tracking. The device can also track levels of glucose, lactate, and ATP, providing valuable data for physiologic monitoring during activity, or in possible disease conditions like diabetes. As far as tricorders go, this device may be the one you have been waiting for, provided you are on board for the implant.

Outside the body, a battery patch provides the 100 milliwatts of power that the device requires by wireless inductive charging through the skin.(See: How wireless charging works.) Each sensor is coated with an enzyme that reacts with blood-borne chemicals to generate a detectable signal. For patient monitoring, a device like this would quickly become indispensable once introduced. In cancer treatment for example, exact dosing is critical. Numerous blood tests are often required to calibrate the treatment according the to the patient’s particular ability to break down and excrete the drug. Often these parameters change when the disease, or the therapy, directly affects the organs involved in these processes — typically this would mean the liver and the kidneys.

Often in the hours before a heart attack, fatigued or oxygen-starved muscle begins to break down, and fragments of a heart-specific smooth muscle protein, the troponin mentioned above, are dumped into the blood. If this can be detected before disruption of the heart rhythm, or the actual attack, lifesaving preemptive treatment can be initiated sooner. To be fail-safe, this depends on the patient having access to their data. Dependence on the integrity of multiple weak links to the cloud, to the doctor, and back again — as is often the prescribed future care scenario — are unacceptable, particularly when heart attacks might be counted on to occur precisely at those times when those links may not be there. Assuming the battles for patient rights will be won sooner rather than later, the next important choice would be getting the proper ringtone when that fateful troponin call comes. A standard ringtone with universal appeal would let bystanders know what was going on and assistance could, at least in theory, be had.

At the moment the device has a limited number of sensors, but there is no theoretical ceiling on this. Nor is there a limit to the kinds of enzymatic reactions or other detectors that could be used with those sensor channels. In the muscle breakdown scenario, for example, multiple products are in fact continuously generated in a tissue-specific manner which can give valuable information to athletes, and weekend enthusiasts alike. Ions and respiratory gases in the blood at different body locations can also be mapped. When coupled with powerful analysis packages, a device like this could help make the patient the customer once again. For now, the device is limited to the lifetime of the enzymes — typically after a month or two they can be considered expired. For all the patent trolls out there, this may be a good time to pen your imaginary device that includes provisions for rapid, and hopefully painless, deimplantation.

As a final note, it should be observed that the EPFL device is not the only one on the horizon. Tricorder-style blood scanners are just beginning to gain a foothold in the medical community. A new $100 million research fund has just been announced by Blackberry mastermind Mike Lazaridis. The new fund is called Quantum Valley Investments, and is emphasizing all things quantum. Based at the Lazaridis Quantum-Nano headquarters in Ontario, the focus will also include quantum sensors, quantum computing, and perhaps one new tantalization for our collective tricorder imagination — acoustic cell sorting.

Good one and you’re right about excessive communications costs/ripoffs. I’d also be concerned that the device is 100% accurate otherwise false alarms will probably cause both heart attacks and unnecessary trips to the ER.

ee mail

This is good.
The technology should be such that it leads to power to the people, let people monitor themselves and go to hospitals when really required.
Smartphones can play that role so as to attach testing equipments , monitor & record the information as well as advice the patients when tests go out of range.
This is due to the fact that :
‘MEDICAL EXPENSES ARE THE NO. 1 FACTOR FOR PEOPLE GOING BROKE IN THE WORLD’
Lets have heart and save people instead of making doctors & hospitals richers & richer as if people are at ransom.

‘Ransomed’ as Huck Finn would say :-)

Joel Detrow

In other words, soon we’ll be running diagnostics on ourselves, not just our workstations. ;)

joedoakes202

Guess what will happen to the cost of medicine when we get the right technology to work properly.

It will plummet.

Sovos

Not necessarily. If we can look ahead and see our risks of certain problems and disorders, what insurance company in their right mind ISN’T going to charge more to those with a high disposition for medical issues later in life? Will certain DNA markers that you’re born with be considered a ‘pre existing condition’?

joedoakes202

True. But the pool of insured would force the change in both directions.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_SUNU4ZLZ77DUD4HRWDDQOPPCZM Old_timer

Ha Ha the unions will never allow it to “Plummet”

yipless@yahoo.com

Joel not only will you diagnose your selves if you buy the repair Ap you can fix the problem.

Christian Rasmussen

I wonder if a similar device could be implanted to monitor dissolved nitrogen in order to optimize Scuba Diving no decompression times.

JanetOnly

People are like sheep and when the mark of the beast becomes a reality one day fools will line up in droves to get it.

vaen

you talk about ‘the mark of the beast’ like it’s a real thing (youknow, like a religious nut) and complain people are gullible sheep? by satan’s left horn, the irony is KILLING me.

http://twitter.com/JapesMacfarland JapesMacfarland

Lol, and you probably “believe” in global warming, and that dogs have more intrinsic value than unborn babies, even in the third term. Disgusting, silly, shallow leftists.

David Thole

Did he say anything about global warming, or about the value of a human live vs an animal? No, he didn’t. His specific comment was related to the ‘sheep’ and ‘fools’ comment from janetOnly, while your comment didn’t relate to either. The fact is, Janet believes that this is some ‘end of days’ type prophecy thing, which is really kinda crazy, from my point of view (and apparently Vaen’s too).

This particular device has a great potential to save a lot of lives, much like a pacemaker does for those with heart issues. I’m all for research in this area, specifically ways of having the device generate the needed power from the flow of blood, rather than requiring an external power source. This is a great first step, though.

Doug

But they make the Mark of the Beast sound so helpful.

NV

I do not know about such things but if i were you i would research the hell out of that call legal zoom or something write it all out and patent that, like two days ago, Capitalism is not dead!

numbercruncher

Ooh that’s tricky. The body doesn’t really have dissolved nitrogen in the bloodstream under normal conditions so chemical markers that detect it may not not be present.

Interesting question though. Research time.

Joel Detrow

Yes it does, the atmosphere is 70% Nitrogen already; it dissolves in fats and body fluids. In fact, just going from normal atmospheric pressure to a total vacuum could also cause decompression sickness; it’s for this reason that astronauts going on spacewalks have to decompress for a few hours before they exit their capsules.

numbercruncher

You’re right. Let me rephrase that by saying that nitrogen inert nature in dissolved form means that it does not interact chemically with the body at all making it difficult to determine its presence in the blood through the enzymatic methods used in the implant above.

Tooly

I don’t take my cell phone scuba diving- do you?

joedoakes202

They have “a box” that allows you to do just that.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_SUNU4ZLZ77DUD4HRWDDQOPPCZM Old_timer

I have yet to purchase a cell phone of any brand and I am perfectly happy .

So does the phone wake you up in the middle of the night so you can croak all tensed up?

Lord Marshall

Heh. That’s a great humor angle. I was going for the polonium substitute angle on my streetcorner…

Jeronimo Dan

I could think of nothing to be more of a contributor to a heart attack than getting a phone call from your smart phone, stating it’s all over Buddy!

ssstofff

lol :-) at least polite

http://twitter.com/DanStlMo DanStlMo

Now Smart Phones will be Taxed as a Medical Device under Obama Care.

joedoakes202

Every month we get taxed . . . there are day I want to take a hammer to it and be done with it.

Dangles

I am grad student that works on biosensors. I would need to see more information on this implant since it looks electrochemical and electrochemical sensors have fairly poor lifespans (especially in vivo). I seriously doubt that this thing will be a feasible long term implant.

greybirdtoo

The article actually says they only last a month or two, so they aren’t really that long term.

mojo jojo

this has some good in it, being abe to keep track of whats going on in your body BUT the Gov will definitely use this for control. To control the type of medical treatment you will get or not get, to have your health files at their fingertips for the world to see.
They will also tax this somehow…

NV

c’mon let me put this chip in you it is for your safety.

uh no thank you i think i will go with natural signs of as heart attack because there are a lot of them.

mojo jojo

governmental monitoring device veiled as something that is for your own good….a “health monitor for your own personal use” lol ya right.
This is just the governments way to get everyone micro chipped without them realizing what it is

http://www.facebook.com/alberti.alex Alex Michael Alberti

The government wants to know how the blood in my body is functioning with the reward of staying safe?

Sure. I don’t mind.

HolyChrist

The boogie man is around every corner, ‘eh? Don’t you have a bunker to go fill with beer farts?

ar05075

Will it also allow your smartphone to give you a heart attack..?

Lynn

I have an autoimmune disease and my need for medications is constantly in flux, but changing doses all the time is not practical under current testing regimens. I wonder if something like this could be used to let me tweak my meds on an ongoing basis.

Coco

The problem with a device like this is that it can take multiple hours post-MI (after a heart attack/myocardial infarction) to detect any appreciable levels of troponin in the blood. In order to make this device useful it would have to be EXTREMELY sensitive, which would lead to a large number of false positives. If people could understand and tolerate this it would actually be a great way to treat and stabilize potentially fatal MI’s, but it would also cause a lot of people to panic for no reason. Very interesting idea though, and innovation is necessary to improve health care for the future.

RandomJerk

This is nothing like a tricorder.

donna seidel

Perhaps this technology could keep watch on alcohol levels in the blood of people in public places. AND the phone of anyone attempting to start a car, a fight, a crime would sound off with a “drunk and dangerous” very loud ring tone/ maybe with some flashing lights.

yipless@yahoo.com

Donna great idea and maybe we could track your weight as well and report it to the world

http://twitter.com/qka qka

Not to mention preventing drunk dialing.

But seriously, an interesting idea

Mike

Finding out that you’re about to have a heart attack just might give you a heart attack.

This is absurd only because the radiation from smartphones may be proven to CAUSE heart problems. Look up the DECT phone study (same kind of radiofrequeny radiation as smartphones) at Magda Havas website. Also look at Zory R. Glaser archives there for over 2000 studies showing biological damage, including heart function, from radiofrequency radiation. Amazing.

That’s pretty cool. More refinements to the technology and it could become widespread. Nice.

Guest

But ya can’t take it past TSA sceerners….dammit!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1522579380 Hank Smith

But Big Sis says ya can’t get it past TSA Screeners….

PaleRider13

Hello this is your smartphone. “You lazy slob! All those years sitting on the couch and eating icecream…. Now it’s time to pay the piper!”

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_WGK3IDC46CWEEFW4VEHQWA5DXA William

How many false alarms will occur? I can see our illustrious (yet bankrupt) government charging ‘the rich” (hint-everyone) a few thousand dollars for each false alarm. The tax will be presented in a way that those against it will be seen as evil and mean. Everyone that likes the tax will continue to get their weekly “I’m a caring person’ addiction fix.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Travis-Busbar/1500753741 Travis Busbar

But the “false positives” WILL surely trigger a heart attack… This is not a viable technology.

YUASK1

Dam just last year after a heart attack we were sitting around talking about this very thing.
One of my hobbies is to create iPhone apps for fun. geeze who knew. :)

GREEDRULES

Will it then perform CPR !?

http://www.facebook.com/people/Clay-Lovett/1527799039 Clay Lovett

I can see something like this being a god send to insulin dependent diabetics. Further, with things like docking applications a database can be used to track changes over time and empower the patient to make better informed decisions about their healthcare. Its pretty cool stuff.

natgrenadine

“Tiny implant lets smartphone tell heart you’re about to have a heart attack”

Doug

Wow, they make the Mark of the Beast sound so helpful

http://www.facebook.com/daniel.munkelwitz Daniel Munkelwitz

So your phone calls you at 2:00 am. And tells you your going to die? Can the chip sell your stock off before the market tanks? I would like one of those phones.

Reading some of these comments reminds me of just how many people are still asleep. Do you think this device would really be allowed to exist if it saves peoples lives. The elite bankers who control Big Pharma want to reduce the population not increase it. Don’t be ignorant, go and do some proper research.

http://www.facebook.com/RamonEwington Ramon Ewington

Honestly, what a load of crap. How about eating less and exercising more instead of having this wonderful quickfix letting you know that burger you ate is going to kill you.

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

ExtremeTech Newsletter

Subscribe Today to get the latest ExtremeTech news delivered right to your inbox.